Vertex Energy, Inc

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Vertex Energy First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all answers are anonymous. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, May 9, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Ragazzino, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Vertex Energy's first quarter 2023 results conference call. Leading the call today are Chairman and CEO Ben Cowart, Chief Financial Officer Chris Carlson, and Chief Operating Officer James Rain. Also attending the call are Chief Strategy Officer Alvaro Ruiz and Chief Commercial Officer Doug Hawke. I want to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, which by their nature are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ materially. For discussion of some of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the risk factors section of Vertex Energy's latest annual and quarterly filings with the SEC. Additionally, please note that you can find the reconciliations of the historical non-GAAP financial measures discussed during the call and the press release issued today. Today's call will begin with remarks from Ben Cowart, followed by an operational review from James Rehm, and financial review from Chris Carlson. At the conclusion of these prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ben. Thank you, John.

And good morning to those joining us on the call today. This morning we issued a press release detailing our financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2023. We are pleased to report a continuation of safe and reliable operations and strong financial and operating results which were in line with our prior expectations. Our business continued to perform as expected for the quarter as we have enhanced our focus on our Gulf Coast operations following the previously announced sale of our Heartland UMO assets for $90 million in February of this year. We reported total adjusted EBITDA of $34.9 million for the first quarter. Our conventional fuels business at our mobile facility continued to perform smoothly, generating a gross profit for the quarter of $65.5 million driven by continued attractive refinery margins, offset in part by the impact of reduced throughput during planned downtime associated with the RD project tie-in. Operationally, we reported throughput volumes of approximately 71,000 barrels per day for the quarter, in line with our prior guidance issued in late February. Shifts in our product yield profile related to the conversion of our hydrocrackers to the production of renewable diesel drove a reduction in volume of finished products such as gasoline and diesel and increase in VGO cut. Fortunately, strength in the VGO market helped mitigate the impact of a changing yield profile overall per barrel profitability at the refinery. driving a capture rate of 51%, which was in line with our prior outlook of 50 to 54%. We continue to advance several important strategic initiatives aimed at streamlining our business and enhancing efficiency. As previously mentioned, the sale of the Heartland UMO assets has brought additional liquidity into the business and allows us to tighten our focus on Gulf Coast operations. Additionally, after a lengthy search for a new chief commercial officer, we announced the hiring of Doug Hawk, who I am thrilled to have on our team. I believe Doug's extensive background and experience bring a tremendous benefit to the company as we seek to capture additional value through the optimization of feedstock procurement and marketing of finished products. On March 31st of this year, Vertex reached an important milestone of on-schedule and on-budget mechanical completion of our RD project. Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by the Mobile Refinery on April 28th, our operations team transitioned from the commissioning phase to startup sequencing of the RD facility. Unfortunately, in the days to follow, we encountered issues with the feed pumping system, resulting in a startup delay, which Chief Operating Officer Zane Gerain will cover in more detail shortly. While this is an unwanted challenge and not the story we hope to have reported to you this morning, I have faith in our team's ability to safely resolve the issues with minimum delay as it relates to the first quarter. I will say I'm very proud of how well this team has executed while keeping safety and reliability at the forefront of our operations. With that, I would now like to hand the call over to James, our Chief Operating Officer, who will provide a detailed update on our operations during the quarter, including a more detailed update on the status of our Renewable Diesel Convergence project at Moquette.